Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1887-02-17
THE WORK OF BOOK AGENTS.
Some of the Characteristics of n Success
full Agent.

Some of the Characteristics of n Success
full Agent.
In the issues of the daily papers the eye
daily meets with advertisements which offer
in rose-tinted English the most fiattering III
ducements to book agents. These advertise
ments are answered by men of all grades,
ability and appearance, and the publisher or
general agent then proceeds to ''sound his
manic discover, in fact, whether the
candidate can be utilized or not Seven men
are failures out of every ten tried. The book
agent ought to be of good address, good
education, scrupuloulsy neat and extremely
polite. Such men can usually find more
congenial work, and are only agents tenn
porarily There are many Of them, how
ever, who remain in the field year after
year, making q good living and meeting
with all manner Of men and experiences.
The average agent makes little more than
a living. One day he is liable to make
enough to keep him month, and with bad
weather or physical disability he is running
the risk of making nothing for week The
business resembles gambling more than any
thing else in its results He is deserving of
better treatment than is usually accorded
him. a generation of John L. Sullivan book
agents would do much to place the profess
sion on that plane where it rightly belongs,
and it is marvel that some venture ONE
canvasser does not attempt some of his forci-
bic methods.
The profits in subscription books are very
great. The average commission TO agents is
80 per cent, and as high as 65 per cent. has
been paid. Three sales a day will as
rule, furnish good living to an agent, but
he is prone TO forget that he must average
IL - Al
also much depends on the weather The sale
Of Gen. Grants Memoirs was big thing
for book agents, yet few Of them saved any
thing from it. The work being in two vol
umes, required a double delivery and per-
haps four calls to each subscriber. In other
words the agent must make enough in one
day to last him four days, or his work was
In vain. The average book of travel, remin-
iscences or memoir IS sold by the agent for
81. OF that sum the canvasser receives
$50, the general agent 60 cents and the
publisher has made a profit Of so cents.
The manufacture OF the book has cost SO
cents Cheap editions Of the works of Dick
ems, Scott, Thackeray, Irving and other
standard writers are being sold at prices
that seem wonderfully cheap, but the facts
are that a better percentage of profit is made
than on the early and more expensive edi-
TONS
The sale of subscription books on the in
stalment plan is a recent venture Standard
works are sold on weekly payments. This
innovation opened up to the agent field that
ne could otherwise never reach. 1t makes
sales easier, but the agents commission is
much less unless he pays the cash himself and
does his own collecting. If he can afford to
do that he can make more by the instalment
plan method, as he gets better price from
the customer. Works by man Of world
wide reputation, whether he be a literary
man or not, always sell best. Grants name
sold his work, and the sale would have been
nearly rs great had it been a volume Of
poems Chicago Tribune